


We are

by Wolfgirl_01



Series: Voltron Oneshots (Keith-centric) [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abused Keith (Voltron), Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Hyperventilation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Keith (Voltron) has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, mild Self-harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 22:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17476451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfgirl_01/pseuds/Wolfgirl_01
Summary: Lance is sick and tired of Keith always being better and wants to do something about it. No surprise it ends bad.





	We are

**Author's Note:**

> TW: implied child abuse; panic attack  
> Please don't read if any of this triggers you.  
> This might become a longer story.

Lance was sick and tired of this. Keith was always better than him, no matter if it was in flying, planning or combat. He never got yelled at by Shiro and if he did something wrong he would simply be lectured later. It was unfair, when Lance did something wrong he would be lectured in front of everyone, it was embarrassing. Shiro also stopped any fights between them and would interrupt any yelling at Keith the last straw was drawn when they did the mind-meld exercise again, all Keith shared were more memories of the Garrison, still Shiro told him he did great. Everyone had shared good and bad memories, childhood memories and some from the Garrison. Keith only ever shared Garrison memories and his mind was closed of so no one could enter. Lance swore to himself that he would no longer be okay with this

The next time they did mind-meld, Lance took action.  
"Hey Keith, why don't you ever show old memories, its not fair we share everything too."  
"Lance" Shiro said warning.  
"What, I'm just saying what everyone is thinking."  
"Lance, drop it." Shiro said.  
"Fine." Lance mumbled.  
Then they started, as the exercise went on Lance realized there was a crack in the wall that protected Keith's mind. He saw this as an opportunity and started pushing.  
TW: Start (implied child abuse)  
He pushed until the wall broke down, first it was dark then a picture appeared, a blond man was staring right at him, he looked angry. Suddenly a hand moved above his head, but before the memory could go on, it shattered to pieces and faded away. The last thing he heard was the sound of someone being slapped. For a moment it was completely dark again, then pictures rushed past him and it felt like everything was spinning.  
TW: END  
He landed in a big room, it looked like a theater room, there was a big screen on the wall and couches around it. There was a boy standing in front of him, he looked like Keith but taller and he had slightly shorter hair, he looked older and more mature.  
"Get out. Get out. Getout. Get the fuck out of our head." Yelled the boy at him and Lance was pushed out of his mind. He collided with Hunk as he was pushed back into his own body. Everyone opened their eyes as they felt sudden fear crawl through their body. The fear was so overwhelming that they had to put the head-bands down.  
TW: START (panic attack)  
As everyone started moving to see if the others were alright, Keith sat there frozen still with the head-band on. He didn't move and when Hunk extended his hand to shake him and he leaned forward and asked Keith if he was alright. Keith saw the hand coming and flinched. As fast as he could he scrambled backwards staring terrified at the others, he started to hyperventilate and clutching his heart. Hunk wanted to go and hep Keith, ask him what's wrong, but Shiro held him back.  
"Don't, he's having a panic attack, if we go near him now we'll only make it worse."  
Seeing this Allura and Coran came bursting in through the door but Shiro held both of them back and motioned for them to come over.  
Keith was sobbing now and gasping for air, but didn't make any sound, just quietly pulling his hair and rocking back and forth. Then slowly his breathing calmed down again, he pulled his hands out of his hair and stopped rocking.  
TW: END  
After Keith had seemingly calmed down, he stood up and walked to the others. He defensively crossed his arms over his chest.  
"Sorry, you had to see that it wasn't supposed to happen ever." Keith acted angry but the fire that was usually in his eyes wasn't there.  
"What was that?" Hunk asked.  
"I... That was nothing, don't worry." Keith said.  
"That didn't look like nothing." Hunk said concernd.  
"I'm fine really, it was nothing, I'm used to that." Keith said.  
"You're used to that happening? That doesn't make me any less worried." Hunk said.  
"That was a panic attack, wasn't it." Pidge said.  
"Should have known you knew that." Keith said defeated.  
"So that was a panic attack?" Hunk asked.  
"Y... Yeah." Keith said. "can we please stop this now?"  
"Guys, we should let Keith be." Shiro said, hopping they would leave it.  
"Shiro we can't just leave this, don't panic attacks only happen when someone is triggered." Hunk asked.  
"No, they don't always have triggers, sometimes they do, for example if someone just goes into your mind." saying that, Keith looked pointly at Lance.  
"Hey, you're the one who never shows us anything, so who can blame me for being curious, besides how would I know that you get a panic attack just because I looked into your mind and saw this blonde man. How would I know you're that pathetic?" Lance said annoyed.  
"What the fuc..." Pidge begann, but before she could end Keith had already punched Lance in the face and he hit the ground, his nose bleeding. Keith stood over him, his fist bloody and rage obvious in his eyes.  
"We are not week. We are stronger than anyone else. You know nothing about us, you don't know what we've been through, so don't call us week if you don't know what you're talking about." Keith yelled.  
"We...?" Pidge asked, "you are not Keith are you?"  
"So what if I'm not Keith." Suddenly his demeanor changed, the rage left his eyes and he looked more mature.  
"Why did that idiot have to do that." Keith mumbled. "I'm sorry I shouldn't have yelled, or punched you, Lance, but to be honest, you deserved it."  
"You're not Keith either, are you."  
"No I'm not, sorry, introductions, I'm Ethan." Ethan said.  
"What do you mean you're not Keith, then where is he." Lance asked after he stood again.  
"Nate is getting him right now, if he calmed down, can we move to the lounge, it would be more comfortable if we're gonna explain this." Ethan said.  
"Oh right and before I forget it," He walked over to Shiro and slapped him right across the cheek before hugging him. "I missed you, Takashi." Shiro hugged him bag, "I missed you to Ethan"  
The others just looked stunned as Ethan walk to the door, but then followed him. They all went to the lounge together and sat down.  
"If Keith doesn't want to tell you everything than please just forget this incident and don't ever talk about it again or pull shit like Lance." Ethan begann. The others listened and nodded in agreement. They waited a while until Ethan spoke up again.  
"So it took a bit of convincing, but we got consent from Keith to tell you at least a bit. He is a bit mad that Nate let that slip, but since there's nothing we can do about it he would rather I just tell you before you pull shit again. So, what we have is called DID, short for dissociative identity disorder, which means that there are more than one person in this body. Our condition is caused by repeated trauma in childhood. Please don't ask what happened, it could trigger all of us, we might tell you things later if we are more comfortable, but not right now. Anyway, the one who punched you was Nathaniel, you can call him Nathen, we call him Nate. He is one of the protectors, don't piss him off he could kick all your asses in seconds, with the amount of martial arts he knows. I'm also kinda a protector, Nate and I are the oldest. We are not the only ones but there are some we would... rather not talk about, most of them don't come out that often anyway."  
"Who was the one that came out right after the mind-meld." Pidge asked.  
"That was...." Ethan trailed of. "I would rather not talk about him, but I guess it's important, his name is Boy. He came out because Keith was triggered through that memory, that Lance saw, which let other memories resurface, that Keith shouldn't have remembered, and we would rather not have seen."  
"So how does that memory thing work?" Pidge asked.  
"Well no one of us has all the memories because otherwise we wouldn't be able to function, Nate and I probably have the most, but we're also the oldest and know how to handle all that. There are three categories of memories, the good, the bad, and the worse. We have all the good, most of the bad and some of the worse. Keith himself only has good and bad, maby one worse, there are some who have only good or only bad memories. We all can be triggered by memories that are not ours and it could happen that we remember the whole thing and someone else has to take over. That's all we are gonna tell you."  
"I have a question, Pidge said, where do the others go?"  
"Well we have a.... lounge.... I think one can call it that. It looks like a theater room. On the scree we can see what the body sees and the one who controls the body sits in a chair, the others who are in the room, when we need to switch or generally. We have couches and other comfy stuff, we are not always all awake there are some who sleep most of the time, we have rooms for each person. Keith is with us right now but he still needs to calm down, Nate is watching him right now. There are some others that could come out, for example Evan, he's autistic, he likes tech and math equitations. He loves to info dump when he's comfortable with someone, but he gets overwhelmed very often, has meltdowns, shutdowns and often goes nonverbal. There's also Keef, you might meet him if Keith keeps to many emotions shut in, he's only 5 so be careful. We'll that's all you need to know, Keith might not come out for a while, so you'll probably be taken to either Nate or me. Oh and one thing, Nate has... literally no impulse control, he might do stupid things,"  
"That's not true"  
"Like this morning..."  
"Oh, before I forget it," Nate suddenly punched Shiro in the face.  
"Or that."  
"Well, I hope all is settled now and we can go on, don't ask me anything about my past or the other person's, I will tell you things on my own. Be patient and if you don't know what to do, if one of the others come out, then get Shiro he knows what to do. And Lance I know you hate it that I don't get yelled at and all the other stuff, but it's really for my own good, pleas accept that." Ethan ended his speech.


End file.
